Blog Entries

Accpac will be moving to a presentation/UI layer that is based entirely on open source tools. This is going to be a huge challenge for us at Zinck Computer Group.

For as long as we have been in business, we’ve developed software using Microsoft and Accpac technologies. We started back in the 80’s with MSC 5.0 and DOS and moved right into Accpac for Windows and Visual Studio / Visual Basic.

But now, the Accpac SDK is based on Tomcat, Eclipse, Google Web Toolkit and Java. Holy Cow Batman! What a difference!

What I’m noticing is that while most of these tools are deep and flexible, they just don’t have the product polish that something like .Net or Visual Studio has. I can’t go to a web site like MSDN and look up quality documentation.

I’m already finding it hard to get centralized information on these tools. Sure, Java is a no brainer, but Tomcat, GWT and Eclipse are moving targets and not as nearly well documented.

As I mentioned in my last post, I volunteer on Engineer Nova Scotia’s Board of Examineers. I’ve also done the odd visit on an accreditation team for the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board.

Last weekend I was part of the team that visited UBC’s Okanagan campus and had a look at their new engineering programs. It’s an incredible amount of work, but I’m continuously amazed at the quality of the team on one of these visits. The staff and faculty at UBC Okanagan were extremely helpful and enthusiastic.

It sort of makes me wonder if engineers that get involved with their community and education are normally this good. It sure makes me hopeful that the profession will continue to improve and set high standards.

That can’t be anything but good for the future of public safety and breakthroughs in applied technology.